Personal care compositions such as toilet soaps are of course well known. Such toilet soaps in bar form are usually formulated with a wide variety of additives to provide user benefits that are not necessarily inherent in the soap itself. For example, additives are employed to enhance lathering of the soap, to ensure mildness, and to enhance its antibacterial qualities. Many years ago a soap bar containing pumice was brought to market to be used for heavy duty personal cleansing such as to remove heavy soils such as oil, grease and clay. The product is still commercially available and contains about 20% by weight of pumice which is used to mechanically assist removal of such soils. Although effective, such a soap with pumice can damage sensitive skin. It is known in the soap industry that these higher levels of pumice can affect soap making equipment, particularly plodder screws.
So called exfoliating soap bars are also known but many are considered irritating to the skin due to the fact that they have high levels of certain harsh or marginally effective exfolliants. Examples of such prior art toilet bars with exfoliant particles or beads are polytyrene beads, silica, walnut shells, apricot seed and the like as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,376,441; 6,342,470; 6,384,000 and 6,074,998. The particles are usually very hard and impart an undesirable abrasive feel to the bars and can be noticed by the user when bathing or washing the hands.